


Too Late To Make A Difference, But Say Something Anyway

by cacophonyGilded



Category: Ghostbusters (Movies 1984-1989), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Death, M/M, Nudity, christian ideology, homestuck scratch concept vaguely referenced, mentions of ghostbusters (2016), more or less canon-centric, this is essentially my attempt at linking both ghostbusters franchises, while mainly focusing on character relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 17:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8810008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cacophonyGilded/pseuds/cacophonyGilded
Summary: Ray never got to tell Venkman that he loved him, but dying at his side might be enough.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much takes place during and directly after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OOF0FpKiYk this and sticks to canon as much as possible for what it is.

“See you on the other side, Ray.”

Ray almost faltered, the literal apocalypse of his choosing looming and fiery behind him, but a look to his right showed him Peter’s face (wearing, he noted, a more serene look than anyone in his position should rightfully be able to wear) and he could only answer with a smile. Could it really be so bad to die, if it meant that he would save the city, America, the world? Could it be so bad to die if he went out a martyr? 

Grim determination melting into comfortable acceptance, Ray decided. He decided that it wasn’t so bad to die, if it meant he died next to three good men; one friendship forged through long nights in laboratories, one through the fire of long nights hunting ghosts, and one… one Peter Venkman. 

An amused smile played the corners of his mouth. He was embarrassingly aware of the devotion radiating off of him, but, with a more or less 99% chance that he wouldn’t live to see tomorrow, was there any harm now in owning up to his long lasting crush? Soon, it wouldn’t matter for him, or for Peter, or for anyone else. The moment was his. 

“Nice working with you, Dr. Venkman,” Ray said. 

“I love you, Peter,” Ray meant.

Each in turn, they fired up their proton packs and crossed the streams one by one, each beam a nail in their coffins. 

_ (There wouldn’t be coffins if they didn’t survive this. There wouldn’t be anything left.)  _

The next events ran together in Ray’s mind in a detached way. He recalled Spengler explaining why the proton packs were dangerous in close proximity-- _ “It would be bad” _ \--and observed the theory play out as if it were a simulation. Later, Ray would swear he was just a passive observer in the whole thing, knowing as he did how it would play out.

The power of the explosion would knock Ray flailing backward, his arm almost ripping out of its socket through the effort it took to keep the streams crossed, an unnatural phenomenon akin to trying to force two positively charged ends of magnets together. It wouldn’t want to go, but the four men would force it, because that’s what heroes did when shit hit the fan.

Ray would yell to Spengler. Winston would add his steam last, and suddenly it would only one stream firing at the temple, the streams completely and totally crossed, which was Bad, Spengler’s voice would echo from the past, and then there would be nothing but white.

Ray’s hypothetical mind drifted back to his physical one just in time for both to go blank with pain.

 

When they came to, there was no apartment, no devil dogs, no explosion, no hundred foot tall marshmallow man bearing down on them. 

It was peaceful.

Ray could hardly open his eyes at first. When he summoned the energy to force his eyelids apart, he was immediately struck by the notion that he was still in the inferno--everything he saw was white, white, white.

Then his willed his eyes to travel, willed them to strike the others. Winston, Egon,  _ Peter, _ all lying spread eagle, but each in turn groaning, rolling over, and sitting up, cautiously. 

Ray followed suit, and to his surprise, found that nothing hurt. Not his shoulder, jarred beyond repair by the recoil of the proton pack, not his skin, which in those final moments had felt like it was being torched by the light of a thousand suns, not his eyes, which he had assumed would be permanently blinded, had he survived this. Everything felt… good.

That was the first thing he noticed. The second thing was that he was completely naked.

Another sweep of the guys showed him that he was, at least, not alone in his nudity, and, like him, Peter noticed quickly, halfheartedly attempting to cover himself while devoting most of his attention to the space around him. Winston and Egon were too intelligent to not notice, but neither of them seemed particularly to care; in his mind, Ray quickly chalked this up to Egon’s easy acceptance of any new situation with the mindset to investigate it, and Winston’s spirituality telling him exactly where he was sitting now.

It was either seconds or eons before any of them spoke.

“So, Winston, in your professional opinion, would you say that this is--”

“I don’t know, man, but it’s definitely… something.”

There was another pause, each of them taking in everything as quickly as they could, scanning around as shapes began to take place among all the white. 

For Ray, he found himself in a bleached version of the dorm room he’d shared with Peter for one fleeting semester in college, with additions here and there--it was bigger, for one thing, with some of the decor of their old office, and the beds weren’t the glorified cots of the dorms, but the ones that they kept upstairs at the firehouse. Thankfully, there were some things that weren’t about Peter, too--shelves upon shelves of books, technology that he would really need to replicate if he could get out of this, a large, dripping glob of ectoplasmic residue that he was dying to collect and do readings for.

This wasn’t the same view that the others were getting. He hesitated in asking them what they saw, for fear they would ask the same question of him in turn, but curiosity, that old hound, got the better of him, and he couldn’t resist.

“What are you guys seeing here?”

Egon, looking, frankly, altogether more comfortable in the nude than any man had the right to be, answered first. 

“I’m on a stage. From the looks of things, I’d be awarded a Nobel Prize soon, among other things, if there were other people. This place is undoubtedly showing us what we want most to see.”

“Cool! What about you, Winston?” Ray was dying to ask Peter, but feared it would be something about Dana, or else that he would just make something up and take it as a joke. Winston, on the other hand, was probably getting something out of this that the rest of them (atheists, every one) couldn’t dream of.

“Do you think it’s possible for a baseball field to look like church, Ray? Because that’s what I’m getting. Cross between Yankee Stadium and the church my mama took me to back in the day.” He paused, mouth open, eyes serene. “And… damn. It’s beautiful.”

Peter didn’t offer up his view, but the way that his mouth fell open and his eyes lit up (he looked more innocent than he had in years, and Ray could hardly stand it) gave the impression that it was truly remarkable. Wasn’t everything here?

He supposed that this was Heaven.

How he got in without any concrete belief in God (and no regrets about that, even now) was beyond him, and there were some serious questions he wanted to ask both the universe and his friends. but right now, being here with them, in his own personal paradise, was enough. It was enough, and naturally, it was to be interrupted.

“Ghostbusters.”

One word, spoken casually, and yet Ray got the distinct impression that anywhere else, the voice would have shattered his eardrums and set his hair on fire. It was a powerful voice in a way that nothing else was powerful, important in a way that made the president and the pope and everyone else in a position of power meek as a newborn.

If Ray had to put a name to the voice, he’d struggle with every instinct he knew of, and call it God.

Putting a face to it… Well, that was easier. 

In his bleached dorm room, a figure glowing with a bright ease sat on the bed that would belong to Peter in another life.

Ray had to squint to let the face of the man appear in his vision, and even then, and even here, it was painful to look at directly. 

He was honest to God looking in the face of what could only be presumed to be a deity, and the deity was….

“ _ Peter? _ ”

A booming laugh surrounded him, filling up the dorm room and the space beyond it. Not too far away from him, Egon squinted, the face of scientific inquiry, and mouthed “Venkman.”

Winston’s face looked from Venkman (real Venkman, unclothed Venkman, Venkman who was slack-jawed in reverence to the presence of God, in his form), to Ray, to God, knowing look on his face. He let out a low whistle, and moved to stand. 

“In a way, yes. Raymond Stantz, you have a way of choosing the forms of impressive beings, don’t you?”

“Uh--well, sure. I guess. I’m new at this, actually.” How he found it in himself to speak was beyond him. Dr. Stantz felt his face heat up like it never did, embarrassed, truly embarrassed, for the first time since college or before. Not much could get to him--strange theories and experiments were his norm, and if they didn’t work, well then that didn’t disprove their existence, it just meant that he should try harder, and he usually let things roll right off his back, but this… Alerting his colleges and Peter himself to the fact that when he was asked to pick the form of God, the form of a being worthy of reverence and veneration, a divine being in the purest sense of the word, that he thought of Dr. Venkman, well, that was a new level of embarrassing. 

Venkman (God) smiled, bowing his head in a way that looked far too humble for Pete’s body. “Suppose so. Well, I can’t promise you’ll get more practice, so if you’d like to pick a different form now, be my guest.” The scientist winked at him. Ray ducked his head, cheeks burning, but shook his head slowly. 

He couldn’t think of another face to give God, anyway.

“Anyone else have objections? No? Well, then. I’m sure that men as intelligent as the four of you must have some questions.”

“Uh, God, I have one. Did all that work? I mean--we saved all the people in that city out there, right?” Winston was the first to speak to God, and he did so calmly. 

“In a manner of speaking.” 

Ray looked around. Mirroring what he could only guess to be the look on his own face, his colleagues had furrowed brows and tightened lips. Confusion.

“Huh?”

“You defeated Gozer for the time being. However, other enemies of its caliber will rise in its place. This is why I’ve called you here.” 

“We--we don’t understand. We’re here because we died, right? Is there more to it than that?”

“Well, to put it frankly, yes. Technically, you’re dead. Your mortal bodies were incinerated upon crossing the streams of your weapon, and in your heroics, you four have perished. But.”

This false Venkman paused, enjoying playing the crowd about as much as the real Venkman did. Ray felt himself leaning forward, and had to mechanically close his mouth as he looked in awe on the high being--and, more to the point, as he looked in awe on his best friend and long time coworker. 

Egon’s voice cut the silence, prompting. “But?”

“But, as you have pushed back against forces of a higher power, as you have saved countless lives from a virtual Armageddon, as you have proven yourself selfless and worthy of such a choice, I’m giving you two roads. I could, if prompted, send you back.”

The men looked between one another and nodded, consensus formed. Was it Ray’s imagination, or did Peter’s eyes linger on his for just a little longer on the others? If they did, Ray shoved it to the back of his mind. There were more important things going on.

Seeing their unspoken agreement, the false Venkman, the living God, smiled softly. “I might warn you about choosing too soon. Look….” 

He held up a glowing sphere, materializing effortlessly in his palms. On its opaque surface flickered images--a painting with haunting eyes, a river of slime, the returned form of Mr. Staypuft, the gaunt face that Ray recognized dimly as Ivo Shandor, the spud from the Sedgewick. Most of the images included at least one of the Ghostbusters, while others showed suited figures of men and women he had yet to meet. 

“These are visions from your future. You could continue your work, fighting larger and more treacherous foes for less and less thanks each time. Business will ebb and flow, leaving you sometimes unemployed, sometimes run ragged. You will be powerless to change this. However….”

The images in the orb changed. It now showed women in jumpsuits not dissimilar to their own, among similar scenes of ghosts and gods. There were four of them--a heavyset woman with thick glasses, a taller woman with an uptight look about her, a younger looking girl sporting a blonde pompadour, and a largish black lady with pretty colored hair. They took on the ghosts with a certain ease and grace that Ray had to admit that he and his partners definitely lacked, with a knowledge that shown through the staticky surface of the orb. 

“There are others that could take your place, if you were obliged to let them. While someone has to fill the job, if you were inclined, rather than to follow this thankless life yourself, to let these women fill it, I couldn’t blame you. It would be simplicity itself to create a sort of scratch and them to take your role.”

The Ghostbusters considered this, exchanging raised eyebrows and pursed lips.

“So, we either go back to earth, fight ghosts until we die, or stay here and get the dying part over with?”

“Effectively.”

Venkman (Venkman) stood, brushed dirt that did not exist off of his legs, and placed his hands on his hips. For a man over thirty, he looked rather puckish with a mischievous smile playing his features as he looked from one member of his team to the next. 

“Now, I can’t claim that I speak for all of us when I say this. I might be a raving madman with no connection to my fellows, and if they so choose, we can disregard whatever I say here and enter heaven, or hell, or wherever sparkling palace in the sky that we get sent to after all is said and done. But just give me a second.”

Ray grinned inwardly. Peter’s strong suit had always been these speeches designed to rally and inspire. Nobody would think it from looking at him, but Venkman could have been a general in another life. 

Ray loved him for it, and sat in silence. 

Nobody spoke. He started pacing. “Those girls looked competent. Probably more competent than the four of us, gritty scientists, frauds, and half-bit phonies (to name just a fraction of what they call us), will ever be. But here’s the thing. We may be losers. We may be creeps, and geeks, and kooks, and whatever else they want to throw at us. But we just saved New York City. We might have just saved the entire damned world! C’mon, we’re the  _ Ghostbusters! _ We don’t work for praise, or thanks, or anything else. Maybe money. Regardless, we do a job that nobody else has done before, and maybe no one else will do again. And are we going to throw that away?”

He paused meaningfully to look at Ray, a twinkle playing in the corner of his eye. “Are we going to throw it away, because those assholes out there aren’t going to thank us? Are we going to throw it away, because someone else could probably do it better? Well?”

Ray smiled, shook his head. “Me, I don’t think I could live with myself. Well, y’know.” 

“No! Of course not! What about you, Spengs, what do you think?”

“I’ve only just begun some of the research that this kind of work entails. To give up on that now would be, quite frankly, to purposefully erase myself from history books. Not to mention the questions that the existence of this… place… brings. I’ll go back.”

“Winston?”

“Man, if the people down there need someone to help, them, like hell I’ll let the chance to help them go.”

“There you have it. I wouldn’t stay here for a million bucks. I’ve got unfinished business back in that damned old town, and I have to live to tell them about it.”

_ Unfinished business. _ Ray couldn’t chalk it up to his imagination that time--Venkman was definitely eyeing him when he said that. 

Venkman (God) chuckled. “I suspected as such. If you’re unanimous, then I’ll let you go.”

“Hey, wait, no. You can’t drop this whole place on us at once, and then just send us away--” Remembering himself, Winston bit his lip. “Er, respectfully, God, I have a few more questions before we go, if you’ll answer them.”

Venkman blinked. “Of course. Mr. Spengler, I suppose that you too would like--”

Spengler answered quickly, more agitated than Ray could ever remember him being. “Yes.”

The three of them gathered to the side, Winston’s quiet veneration and rapid questions only occasionally interjected by Spengler’s deep contemplation. Ray had some questions that he wanted to ask, himself, but found it more pressing to turn to the other Venkman, the real Venkman, and venerate in a far more personal way.

“So God, huh?”

Ray looked at his feet, kicked at nothing. “Awe, shut up, Pete. It was the first thing I thought of.”

“I saw that. Ray, you’ve been holding out on me.…”

“It’s not like that, it’s just that, um. I didn’t think you’d be interested. You always had something else going on, you know; Dana, Jennifer, Rosie, Parker, Martha. The rest.” He gulped, anticipating rejection and trying not to let it hurt so bad.

It would, though. Everything hurt with Peter. 

“Wait, Martha? She was college,  _ early _ college--jeez, Stantz, how long have you been carrying this torch?” 

Ray flushed red, shrugged. “A while, I guess.”

“That’s more than a while, that’s like--a lifetime. You haven’t been with anyone since college.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Because of me.”

“Yes.”

“Ray, you’re coming dangerously close to making me feel like an asshole. Why didn’t you--hell, why didn’t you say something?”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Well--I don’t know, but it could have saved  _ you _ a lot of trouble.”

Swallowing his pride, Ray looked up from his close study of his naked feet, and smiled apologetically. He winced with rejection before the words escaped his lips, but, mind set, asked anyway: “Does it make any difference now?”

Peter arched an eyebrow and smiled. “Ray, you know you’re my one and only.”

“Ha.”

“I mean it--c’mere.” Peter’s hands snaked around Ray’s waist, and he let himself be pulled in, laughing in a way that conveyed both joy and a hint of relief. Peter planted sloppy, wet kisses up and down his neck, across his jaw, with a wide grin that Ray could feel from the simple contact to his skin. 

Everything happened as he had imagined it would, back in college when he would let his mind wander to Peter when he was trying to go to sleep, pondering what it would be like to be the girls Venkman brought home, what it would feel like to get that attention. As it turned out, the attention felt like hot coals set in his veins. It was a moment like a firework, like a storybook. It was an impossibly good moment. 

For a brief second, Ray wondered if he had made a mistake somewhere, wondered if this was really Venkman he held in such close proximity, after years of fantasizing and wishing and thinking about this. It couldn’t be, could it? This was a dream induced by his brain as all the particles tore themselves from one another. This wasn’t Venkman, but God, and there had been some mistake. 

Suddenly aware of their close proximity, Ray pushed the traitorous thoughts out of his head and laughed, planting a wet kiss on Peter’s cheek, which he wrinkled his nose at and grinned as he wiped off.

“Gross, Ray, not on the merchandise.”

Ray planted another one for good measure. For his protests, Peter didn’t seem to mind all that much.

Across the heavenly void, Winston and Egon had seemingly finally been sated in their questioning. God (Peter) held up a hand, and congregated them together. 

“It’s been an honor to see the four of you--truly. If there are no further questions,” he looked pointedly at Winston and Egon, both of whom looked smug and content, “then I can send you back.”

“Wait, God, I have one. Will we remember this?” Ray felt a tight clenching in his heart. Oh well, if they wouldn’t, at least he wouldn’t know what he was missing.

“You’ll remember the information you gained. Beyond that I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Want to be more specific, handsome?” Ray looked to Peter, and saw what he hoped was a reflection of his own tight, gut wrenching fear shining back. If it took fighting a demigod and coming back from the dead to see Peter reciprocate his ancient crush, well, that was okay by him, but to come all this way and go back to normal…. 

God smiled Peter’s smile back at him. “I think you’ll just have to figure it out yourself.”

“Well, thanks for nothing. Uh--one last thing. Do we get our clothes back when we get down there?”

God’s eyes lit up in a way that only Peter’s could. He said nothing, but snapped his fingers, and everything began rushing away, white, white, white once again--Winston’s baseball stadium with stained glass marking the outfield, Egon’s stage and the hundred Nobel prizes he was suited for, Ray’s own dorm room, Peter’s room revealed at last--the Ghostbusters’ firehouse, as plain and complex as that.

Ray grabbed him in the whirlwind, and pressed him close. “Peter, I’m not sure if I’ll remember this, or if you want to. But please, promise me that when we get back out there, this won’t all be for nothing. You’re right--I don’t want to pine anymore.”

“Ray, Ray--look at me, alright? I was proud to die by you, and I’m proud to have whatever this entails. God, or whoever that handsome devil back there was, couldn’t erase that if he wanted to, okay?”

“But Dana--”

“It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out, yeah?”

“Okay. Okay, Peter.”

“And if I get too out of hand, remind me of this here. Kick my ass for me.”

Ray smiled, and lied. “Will do, Pete.”

With that, he pressed their mouths together, worshiping for the first time in his life just as the space disintegrated around them in a pop of eternity and everything went white.

 

When Ray came to, everything hurt. The pain that he had expected upon waking the first time was present and more, every cell in his body protesting as if they had been stitched back together by a cruel creator. His head felt like it had been beaten with a brick, and his thoughts were like static, trying to rearrange themselves. 

When he could pry his eyes open, he saw a movement beside him--who was that?

It took him longer than it should’ve to reach the name.

“Winston!”

Coherent thoughts forming, he was suddenly hit with something--something white hot, a vague, blurry memory, his old dorm room,  _ Peter, _ and suddenly he was calling out.

_ “Venkman!” _

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I really love Ghostbusters (2016) and I wasn't trying to say that it shouldn't have existed or that the guys could do it better when I wrote this. I'm just really devoted to them and I'm trying to figure out a tiny sliver of a way that the two universes could be related without making the girls the daughters of the old guys. I'd actually like to go into that sort of concept a lot more if there was anyone out there who'd read it. :)


End file.
